That's the ticket!! I've just swithced to 2 strands of 1mm hemp for wick. Wowwee!!
Boiling aties, is it a dead thing ?
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That's the ticket!! I've just swithced to 2 strands of 1mm hemp for wick. Wowwee!!
Looks like only one other person bothered to answer your question.
I would remove the chimney so that the water can get in there and clean it out better. Sometimes there's juice stuck inside the chimneys so I rinse those as well and roll up the corner of a paper towel and stick it through the chimney to clean and dry. I've never tried boiling, just the cleaning process that EBates described plus some extra "Chimney Sweeping."
In the future, if you're interested in rebuilding, you can find a lot of useful information here, but that was not what your question was about.
I just use Vodka to clean any and all of my attys. 1. it's cheap you can buy half a gallon bottle for $8.98 and 2. the alcohol seems to clean the gunk out of the wicks a lot better than just hot water does. But I am pretty new at this too but have taken the advice of the great people here off of ECF and a lot of them use Vodka over hot water anyway because of the gunk factor! They seem to last a lot longer, and I am not changing heads quite as often as I was when I was using plain ole hot water. To me it seems to be a dead art, go buy yourself a big I mean huge bottle at Wallyworld for $8.98 it's Barton Vodka non flavored, it lasts me over a month long, and clean your attys. You will see a dramatic change in their performance and how long they last compared to a hot water bath! JMHO!
I appreciate that you will give some rebuilding info to people who need it. I rebuild my protank coils and they are amazing, I wish everyone had the time and inclination to do the same and quit wasting money buying them.
However, when you give coil wrapping info, dont leave out the most important part, THE INSIDE DIAMETER. Do you wrap around a 1/16 drill bit? 1 or 2mm allen wrench? 20ga needle? Micro coil means a range of things, so being specific could really help someone out.
I apologize, Im not trying to be a jerk.
Looks like only one other person bothered to answer your question.
I would remove the chimney so that the water can get in there and clean it out better. Sometimes there's juice stuck inside the chimneys so I rinse those as well and roll up the corner of a paper towel and stick it through the chimney to clean and dry. I've never tried boiling, just the cleaning process that EBates described plus some extra "Chimney Sweeping."
In the future, if you're interested in rebuilding, you can find a lot of useful information here, but that was not what your question was about.
ahah yes exactly thank you ! For now I will clean my coils, even if new ones are inexpensive I cannot just throw the old ones away if I can have a few more days of vape from every one of them...
I know I will rebuild soon but I'm in a new appartment and waiting to get my "manly little office table" ready to have a nice quiet place to try it... I also will have a pinball machine in there
!
How long do you let them soak ? Do you remove chimney and silicon/rubber thingy ?
I let mine soad for 24 hour minimum, and I soak the silicon, too. It has no effect on the silicon, only the gunk. The higher the alcohol content, the better. Personally, I use 151 pure grain alcohol. It was bought for me as a gift, and I don't drink the stuff.
Consequently, it works great at cleaning small arms parts and lawnmower engine parts, too.
If you're OK with continuing to use the stock silica wick and flavor wicks, here's what I used to do (before I switched to cotton wicks and started rebuilding the coils):
1. Remove the chimney and silicone top cap, put both of them in a jigger of vodka.
2. Remove the flavor wick(s), trying not to let them unravel, carefully place them into the jigger.
3. Put the coil into the jigger.
4. With a pair of tweezers, pick out a flavor wick, put it down on a paper towel and gently press out the vodka. Holding one end of the flavor wick with the tweezers, use a lighter or torch to heat the flavor wick until it glows orange. This will burn out most of the baked/burnt in juices, leaving the wick white or mostly white. Don't touch it with your hands right away as it will be quite hot. If you couldn't burn out all the black stuff, pick up the other end of the flavor wick with the tweezers and repeat the process. The flavor wick is still usable even if falls apart into three pieces - it's just a little humbug to insert. Repeat with the other flavor wick. I usually would give them a final rinse in vodka and placed them back on the paper towel. If you can, you should obtain some 1mm silica wick to replace the flavor wicks; they will unravel over time - probably before you really need to replace the coil.
5. Take the chimney and clean it out with an old toothbrush and vodka. Give it a final rinse in the vodka and put it on the paper towel.
6. If I had the time and or the inclination, I let the coil soak in vodka for awhile, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary. Dry burn the coil - use low voltage (3.2v is good) if possible. The portion of the wick that is inside the coil should also turn white or mostly white. Give it a final rinse, then shake and blow it out. Rinsing the coil after the dry burn is important as the dry burn will leave a residue that could taste pretty bad. Dry burn a second time to dry out the wick a bit.
7. Reassemble the pieces and test for resistance with either an ohm meter or multimeter before use. I could usually get several uses of each coil before I had to rebuild them.
Let them dry with the chimney and top cap off if you have the time. Not a big deal if you don't, but if they're still a little wet it will take a few hits before you get an optimal vape. Although cotton wicks should be primed, I never primed the silica wicks.
This probably sounds time consuming, but it's really not that bad.
1. Remove the chimney and silicone top cap, put both of them in a jigger of vodka.
2. Remove the flavor wick(s), trying not to let them unravel, carefully place them into the jigger.
3. Put the coil into the jigger.
4. With a pair of tweezers, pick out a flavor wick, put it down on a paper towel and gently press out the vodka. Holding one end of the flavor wick with the tweezers, use a lighter or torch to heat the flavor wick until it glows orange. This will burn out most of the baked/burnt in juices, leaving the wick white or mostly white. Don't touch it with your hands right away as it will be quite hot. If you couldn't burn out all the black stuff, pick up the other end of the flavor wick with the tweezers and repeat the process. The flavor wick is still usable even if falls apart into three pieces - it's just a little humbug to insert. Repeat with the other flavor wick. I usually would give them a final rinse in vodka and placed them back on the paper towel. If you can, you should obtain some 1mm silica wick to replace the flavor wicks; they will unravel over time - probably before you really need to replace the coil.
5. Take the chimney and clean it out with an old toothbrush and vodka. Give it a final rinse in the vodka and put it on the paper towel.
6. If I had the time and or the inclination, I let the coil soak in vodka for awhile, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary. Dry burn the coil - use low voltage (3.2v is good) if possible. The portion of the wick that is inside the coil should also turn white or mostly white. Give it a final rinse, then shake and blow it out. Rinsing the coil after the dry burn is important as the dry burn will leave a residue that could taste pretty bad. Dry burn a second time to dry out the wick a bit.
7. Reassemble the pieces and test for resistance with either an ohm meter or multimeter before use. I could usually get several uses of each coil before I had to rebuild them.
Let them dry with the chimney and top cap off if you have the time. Not a big deal if you don't, but if they're still a little wet it will take a few hits before you get an optimal vape. Although cotton wicks should be primed, I never primed the silica wicks.
This probably sounds time consuming, but it's really not that bad.
This^ I recently started using cotton and can't say enough good things about it. Made my wife a micro-coil for her Protank and showed her how to change the cotton wick. Dry burn the empty coil, re-wick and you are ready to go. Flavor is out of this world. One of these days I'm going to sit down and do this to all of our Protank heads. Before this we were rebuilding them with Silica; yeah, you could dry burn them, but after a few weeks they needed a rebuild. The micro-coils, on the other hand, last damn near forever which saves wear and tear on the little rubber grommets. Given we have over 20 heads, I don't think I'll have to buy another for a very, very long time.
ahah yes exactly thank you ! For now I will clean my coils, even if new ones are inexpensive I cannot just throw the old ones away if I can have a few more days of vape from every one of them...
I know I will rebuild soon but I'm in a new appartment and waiting to get my "manly little office table" ready to have a nice quiet place to try it... I also will have a pinball machine in there
I do mine on the kitchen counter.
And we have 12 pinball machines here - apparently it's an obsession (an expensive and space-consuming one!). I know way more about pinballs than I ever wanted to.
I tried this method for the first time yesterday. I used just a little wisp of cotton from an organic cotton ball and it worked much better than my previous attempts at cotton wicks. The cotton did take a while to "beak-in" and start delivering full flavor, but so does silica.
When the wire gives out, I'll rebuild with the pre-coiled wire & wick assemblies I get from FT, I like those because of the no-resistance wire legs. (They have pre-made coils without wick too.)
Soaking didn't work for me, but that could be because I used vodka instead of PGA. Dry burning or re-building seems easier and more effective than soaking IMO.
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I soak them, along with the rest of the disassembled Protank in a vinegar/water mixture. Then rinse under hot water. I use needle-nose pliers because the water is to hot. Then air-dry.
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